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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: National Entertainment Media
Salesrank: 13376
Released: July 7, 2009 |
| Our Price: $6.68 |
| Used Price: $0.79 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
How far would you go to have everything you desire?
When a veteran conductor (Danny Glover), a young pre-med student (Leelee Sobieski) and a struggling salesman (Steve Zahn) discover a dead body onboard a night train, the three strangers find themselves on a collision course with destiny. Among the deceased man’s possessions is a mysterious box, containing a treasure so valuable that they conspire to keep it for themselves. Their decision sets in motion a tense game of obsession and deceit, where greed betrays reason and morality gives way to temptation.
BONUS FEATURES:
“Night Train: The Making of”
Cast and Crew Interviews, Photo Gallery, Trailer
Night Train Reviews:
Great Hitchcock style low budget piece! 
2009-11-29 - This film is a perfect example of how to make a very effective and suspenseful film with a low budget. One location, few actors and great script. The interaction between the different characters is great. Danny Glover is perfect as the aging train conductor who sees the chance to get a break in life. Only thing that disturbed me was the bad CGI.
Night Train DVD 
2009-11-24 - Not a bad movie, but not easy to follow if you are multi-tasking and not completely paying attention.
Train to Nowhere 
2009-09-22 - This is an unimpressive movie. Not because it was low budget (it was) nor because of the tenuous quality of the CGI (the exterior shots of the train resemble the surreal animation of The Polar Express and look more like an HO model train than the real thing) and not even because of the relative quality of the story. The problem with this film is execution. A cautionary tale of the consequences of degrading ones morals for potential reward, it could be compared to The Monkeys Paw by W.W. Jacobs, or the Sci Fi mini series The Lost Room, but unfortunately NIGHT TRAIN doesn't deliver much of a payoff for the viewer. Combine that with some downright silly plot elements, sprinkle in some bad acting, and you're left with a forgettable movie best saved for late night television. It's not impossible to enjoy, but you should go in expecting it to watch like a two hour long episode of the Outer Limits.
The action of the film takes place around a mysterious box in the possession of man who boards the train and then dies of a combination of sleeping pills and vodka. The box contains something very valuable, and the three main characters spend the rest of the film ascertaining what to do with its contents.
The attempts to flesh out the characters are clumsy at best. Especially bad is the hackneyed relationship between the main conductor and protagonist (Danny Glover) with his younger assistant. This relationship is so poorly constructed that it's painful to watch.
The setting of the movie is an issue for me. The poorly rendered CGI train is hurdling through a landscape that looks like the surface of the moon but with snow. No cities, no lights, nothing. I guess it could be Alaska, but location is never explained. This becomes a problem when the total isolation of the train which is presented early in the film as a given is completely undone later on. First, we learn one of the protagonist is returning from a work Christmas party. Then we learn that the train is making several stops. Then there is a random (and all too convenient) road running alongside the tracks which allows the introduction of a police detective (again all too convenient). It seems like the movie can't decide if this train is running through a remote wilderness devoid of the assistance of society or if it is not in fact, isolated. It wants to play both sides of the field.
The most laughable moment is when one character seals another into a sleeping berth using electrical tape around the edges to allegedly suffocate them. The man sealed inside IMMEDIATELY starts complaining that he can't breath. I mean come on, even assuming the audience can buy that sleeping berths are capable of being hermetically sealed in the first place, the air would not run out in a space that large for something close to an hour. Couple that with the character's total lack of imagination or energy to try and escape (no kicking the door, no using a belt of keys or anything else to try make a hole, etc...) and what your left with is another super convenient plot device. Lazy writing indeed.
NIGHT TRAIN really falls to pieces in the final act when it tries to reveal too many things too quickly and ends up muddling all of them together and making none of them significant. Too little groundwork is laid to support much of what takes place at the end of the film, and much of it feels tacked on, or even worse, unimportant.
The final scene is confusing and poorly done. The box is finally opened, but all we see is a golden glow similar to Jule's suitcase in Pulp Fiction and the primary question surrounding its true nature is never answered. This is again, just lazy writing and poor execution.
Ultimately, this is a movie that isn't worth owning. It might be worth renting if you enjoy Outer Limits/Twilight Zone types of movies. Just don't expect too much from it and you just might not be disappointed.
2/5 Stars.
So THAT was Richard O'Brien...
2009-09-05 - I bought this film based on the premise and the fact that I was familiar with the 3 lead actors. As the credits rolled, I noticed another familiar name, far down the list - Richard O'Brien. Since he was the creator and star of one of my favorite films of all time, I thought it would be kind of intriguing to see what he looked like after all these years. Since his glory days as Riff-Raff in his classic "Rocky Horror Picture Show", he has made cameos in a bunch of movies, including "Elvira's Haunted Hills", but not much recently. As the film rolled on, I got so caught up in the plot that I realized I had not seen anyone that could possibly be him, except... NAH! Couldn't be! But as the movie neared the end, I figured I just HAD to be right. I agree fully with the comparisons to classic episodes of "The Twilight Zone", and I didn't mind the cheesy sets. It added to the atmosphere of the film. I could envision seeing this on SYFY on Saturday night (they just need to bleep out a couple of F-words), and it is a cut above their usual fare. And, yes, I was right about Mr. O'Brien. If you still don't recognize him, check out the "making of" featurette, where he appears as himself. Overall, this movie was much more entertaining than I expected given that it went direct to video. And if someone drops dead nearby with a box in their hand, don't look inside!
You are traveling through another dimension...
2009-08-30 - This movie is a bit Rod Serling-like. Definitely a good Twilight Zone tale here. "Submitted for your approval, one unique, mysterious, and seemingly impregnable box in the possession of a dead man, that beckons all who gaze into it with a siren song of riches untold..." The greed runs wild as the train rolls down the tracks in a blizzard. This one held my interest throughout. Well acted, IMHO -- and besides, Leelee Sobieski is such a beauty I can watch her in anything. A really fun, unique little film.
